Name your biggest SF pet peeve, please?

[Nobody700]

For me, myself, and this might seem weird, but please hear me out... it is that to the best of my knowledge, we have never seen any wide-scale, mainstream implementation of heavy-repeating energy blasts. Like the machine-gun version of DEWs rather than projectiles. There has been a few sparse and limited uses over the decades, and... you know, I get the idea a lot of the time. Energy blasts function more like shotguns or handguns because they want to tell you the exotic particles excite the flesh tissue so that it either leaves you bleeding to death, or stops your heart, or something like that. But a lot of SF does not go with that interpretation, so in many instances you'd think it'd be more cost-effective just to use a machine gun. I mean, ST sometimes does and then sometimes it does not. And I can't help but feel this is something that is untapped in the visual SF genre. That's just me, though.

I wanna hear what YOU guys think. What's your biggest SF pet peeve? Is it something related to what I just said? Or is it something else altogether? Am I wrong, and was there an SF series out there which did that?

I'm sorry if this is posting too much. I want to live by a simple rule. I will not post a thread until I get at least one reply. So, read at your earliest convenience, smash the reply out, and I'll leave you to it.

When I think of laser guns, I think of all the wonderful and deadly applications that lasers could bring. Than fiction says it's just a tiny blob that does no damage.

[Captain Crimson]

For me, myself, and this might seem weird, but please hear me out... it is that to the best of my knowledge, we have never seen any wide-scale, mainstream implementation of heavy-repeating energy blasts. Like the machine-gun version of DEWs rather than projectiles. There has been a few sparse and limited uses over the decades, and... you know, I get the idea a lot of the time. Energy blasts function more like shotguns or handguns because they want to tell you the exotic particles excite the flesh tissue so that it either leaves you bleeding to death, or stops your heart, or something like that. But a lot of SF does not go with that interpretation, so in many instances you'd think it'd be more cost-effective just to use a machine gun. I mean, ST sometimes does and then sometimes it does not. And I can't help but feel this is something that is untapped in the visual SF genre. That's just me, though.

I wanna hear what YOU guys think. What's your biggest SF pet peeve? Is it something related to what I just said? Or is it something else altogether? Am I wrong, and was there an SF series out there which did that?

I'm sorry if this is posting too much. I want to live by a simple rule. I will not post a thread until I get at least one reply. So, read at your earliest convenience, smash the reply out, and I'll leave you to it.

When I think of laser guns, I think of all the wonderful and deadly applications that lasers could bring. Than fiction says it's just a tiny blob that does no damage.

True.

[Riedquat]

Human looking aliens.

I let it slide sometimes if it's a good reason (Like Superman) or because of practical reasons (like 60's Trek) but I am really annoyed with how a lot of alien races look like humans. Or are humans with a tiny difference like weird noses or purple eyes. I really would prefer aliens who ARE aliens, and maybe less humanoids and more strange beings. I let it slide in some obvious stuff but animation, comics, and literature should try to fix that problem. Unless you have a GOOD reason they are human looking, I don't want to see human aliens.

Even now there's a significant extra cost in making non-human looking aliens rather than slapping some makeup on a real actor. Add in the problem of making something both non-human and plausible when we've never seen any extra-terrestrial life and it's a no-win situation most of the time I think. So willing suspension of disbelief gets me through that one.

[Nealithi]

Regarding energy weapons...

Star Trek: TOS had one scene I can think of where a few Starfleet officers stunned a small crowd at the same time by using a wide beam, and one episode of Voyager where a mind-controlled Tuvok threatened to do that on a kill setting, but other than that most energy weapons seem less effective than a revolver.

One of the never done again to my knowledge is the TOS episode Piece of the Action. Where the Enterprise uses a wide beam stun on a whole block. Just stunning everybody. And never mentioned again . . .
I mean the orbiting star ship has stun settings?! o.O

[clearspira]

Regarding energy weapons...

Star Trek: TOS had one scene I can think of where a few Starfleet officers stunned a small crowd at the same time by using a wide beam, and one episode of Voyager where a mind-controlled Tuvok threatened to do that on a kill setting, but other than that most energy weapons seem less effective than a revolver.

One of the never done again to my knowledge is the TOS episode Piece of the Action. Where the Enterprise uses a wide beam stun on a whole block. Just stunning everybody. And never mentioned again . . .
I mean the orbiting star ship has stun settings?! o.O

Well... is there any reason why it wouldn't?

[Captain Crimson]

Regarding energy weapons...

Star Trek: TOS had one scene I can think of where a few Starfleet officers stunned a small crowd at the same time by using a wide beam, and one episode of Voyager where a mind-controlled Tuvok threatened to do that on a kill setting, but other than that most energy weapons seem less effective than a revolver.

One of the never done again to my knowledge is the TOS episode Piece of the Action. Where the Enterprise uses a wide beam stun on a whole block. Just stunning everybody. And never mentioned again . . .
I mean the orbiting star ship has stun settings?! o.O

Well... is there any reason why it wouldn't?

I think it is that it is a major game-changer, where you could easily clear whole street blocks with one weapon, one officer, and the firefights we see at points through the shows should not happen. With that token, though, we should have ethical debates on the nature of using time travel to fix our problems far more often than is.

[Zargon]

No sense of scale sure is a big one.

I'll pick: no sense of space physics. Not only having space wars be World War Two battles, but also everything else.

[Nealithi]

Regarding energy weapons...

Star Trek: TOS had one scene I can think of where a few Starfleet officers stunned a small crowd at the same time by using a wide beam, and one episode of Voyager where a mind-controlled Tuvok threatened to do that on a kill setting, but other than that most energy weapons seem less effective than a revolver.

One of the never done again to my knowledge is the TOS episode Piece of the Action. Where the Enterprise uses a wide beam stun on a whole block. Just stunning everybody. And never mentioned again . . .
I mean the orbiting star ship has stun settings?! o.O

Well... is there any reason why it wouldn't?

Captain Crimson said it. Having a stun setting overhead means so many ground battles are ended by who has orbital superiority.

[Captain Crimson]

No sense of scale sure is a big one.

I'll pick: no sense of space physics. Not only having space wars be World War Two battles, but also everything else.

Being WWII is quick and easily accessible for the larger audience of casuals. For the more initiated, however, that dissolves away, I think. Like how SG-1 is typically grounded in real science, yet it gets to be a bit mildly exasperating when, say, you see traditional explosions in space. Or something else like that.

[Riedquat]

No sense of scale sure is a big one.

I'll pick: no sense of space physics. Not only having space wars be World War Two battles, but also everything else.

Amen to that one. Sometimes I can live with it (doesn't stop me loving Star Wars) but often things like that are accepted as "rule of cool", which leaves me banging my head in annoyance. "Caught in the gravity" usually demonstrates a complete lack of understanding of what gravity is, although I suppose you could be suborbital then have your engines knackered (in which case just say so!)

Should make all space science fiction directors, writers, and producers play Kerbal Space Program (and even that's scaled down to save time).